Surau.co – How to Creat HTML emails are easy to detect. Most of the styled multimedia marketing emails in your inbox are HTML emails.
As a marketer, you must have compared HTML email with plain text email and realized that each has different advantages.
HTML emails are inherently no better than plain text emails, and in different situations both types can be part of a successful email marketing program.
This is what the HTML looks like on the user interface. Click the HTML button to see the code behind.
In this article, we’ll explain how you can get started with creating HTML emails, no matter your level of experience and coding level, and share some of the free templates you have at your disposal usable.
How to Create HTML Email
You don’t need to know how to code to create an HTML email, because email creation and sending tools provided ready-to-use preformatted HTML templates that allow you to design emails without accessing the actual code on the back end.
When you make changes in the email editor, those changes are automatically hardcoded into the final product. An email generator like this is an ideal option if you don’t have an email designer on your team, but still want to send out professional-looking marketing emails.
Still want to create an HTML email from scratch? If you’re comfortable with HTML and want more direct control over your email code, most email tools will let you directly import HTML files to use as custom email templates.
There are many free HTML email templates available on the web (some of which will be shared below), and if you know how to use an HTML file, it’s usually pretty easy to customize the template with the email builder of your choice. .
To create a completely HTML email from scratch, you will need to have advanced knowledge of HTML (or work with a developer). This tutorial provides a solid overview of basic HTML email coding. As the process of creating HTML emails from scratch can be quite complicated, we recommend working with a developer or using a pre-made HTML email template.
Read More: 6 Email Marketing With Gmail, proven effective!
Developing a custom HTML email
If you are developing a custom HTML email template for use, be sure to include the required tokens (this ensures your email is customizable and CAN-SPAM compliant).
Full instructions for coding specific HTML email templates can be found here. Or, just use a simple email editor, what you see is what you get.
Now that you understand the basics of HTML email development, let’s review some important best practices to keep in mind. Whichever method you plan to use to create HTML emails, these best practices will help improve your email design, user experience, and deliverability.
1. Make sure your HTML email is responsive for different screen sizes and devices
How your email appears in a user’s inbox depends on a number of different factors.
One of the most obvious and important factors is the screen size of the device being viewed. An email that looks good and is well-formed on a desktop can easily turn into a pile of overlapping text and images that can’t be read when viewed on a smartphone screen.
To make sure your HTML emails look the way you want them to on multiple screen sizes, the best thing to do is keep the layout simple and easy to understand. As you start adding more complex elements like multiple columns and floats, it becomes more difficult to translate your email format for different screen sizes.
If you decide to develop a more complex layout, be sure to proactively figure out how elements will be rearranged to accommodate different screen sizes.
For example, if your email is displayed as multi-column on desktop, that same structure won’t appear on mobile – you’ll need to use a media query to determine how Items will display on different screen sizes.
Keep in mind that developing a responsive HTML email really goes beyond the structure and formatting of your message. Consider how your overall experience using messaging on different devices will feel.
Make sure your font choices are legible on mobile as well as on desktop, and use mobile friendly buttons or CTAs instead of hyperlinked text (have you tried typing a few lines of hyperlink text on a mobile device? It’s not easy).
2. Make sure your style works in different email clients
Another important factor that greatly affects the appearance of HTML emails in a customer’s inbox is the email client they use to open the message. Each email client loads email slightly differently, so emails that look a certain way in Gmail might look different in Outlook.
Fortunately, if you know how the most popular email clients load certain HTML and CSS elements, you can create a fairly consistent experience across different user inboxes.
It’s all about knowing which cards are not supported to avoid and adjust. This comprehensive guide explains how the most popular email clients (including Gmail and some versions of Outlook) support and render different style elements.
3. Know how long it will take for your HTML email to load.
Your email load times can be the difference between winning new subscribers and losing loyal ones.
While it can be tempting to take advantage of all the different stylistic options and opportunities to incorporate the visuals that HTML email provides, it’s OK if your email is taking too long to load.
When designing your HTML emails, pay attention to your email load times, especially if someone, for example, has opened your message on their morning subway ride with the resulting, combined less data. Here are some small steps you can take to dramatically increase your load time.
- Use images sparingly
This way you will support the message you want to convey to your customers. Always use an image compressor (such as Compressor.io) to reduce the file size as much as possible.
Most image compressors can significantly reduce image file sizes without losing quality, so this extra step won’t affect the visual integrity of your email.
- Use standard web fonts
Custom fonts are great for enhancing landing pages, but they can add an unusual layer of complexity when added to emails.
As we discussed above, all email clients handle styling elements differently, and this extends specifically to fonts. For added security, use standard web fonts and verify that the email client that most of your customers use supports that particular font.
- Try HTML minifiers.
HTML minifiers (such as minifycode.com and smallseotools.com) automatically remove unnecessary code from HTML files. Elements added repeatedly will be ignored, but the actual rendering of your email will be preserved (always test!).
Each line of code affects the loading time of the email. As a result, taking the time to remove unwanted code can have a positive impact on load times.
- Keep your message focused on one goal
The best way to reduce email load times is to reduce the amount of content you add to each email you send. It seems obvious, but too many marketers are trying to cram too much content into their emails.
This not only leads to an unpleasant user experience (no one wants to read a novel as an email) but it can also reduce your load time and cause users to ignore your email.
4. Anticipate (as much as possible) end-user inconsistencies.
The email client and screen size are not the only factors that can affect the appearance of HTML emails in a customer’s inbox. Things like email client version, operating system, unique user settings, security software, and whether images autoload can affect how well your emails load.
As you might have guessed from this long list of factors, trying to do them all (every time you send an email) will probably be enough to make you throw your computer around the room.
But you don’t have to be completely defenseless against these variables – you just need to plan a little ahead.
- Consider creating a web version of your email.
It’s like giving your email a security key. If for some reason, due to one of the many factors discussed above, your lovingly crafted email gets messy when a customer opens it, then at least they’ll have the option to click “View as webpage”.
Because style elements display much more consistently in web browsers than in email HTML, you’ll have more control over the web page version of your message. you can enable an option that will automatically instantiate a website.
- Create a plain text version of your email.
The plain text version is just what it sounds like – an alternate version of your HTML email that displays as plain text. Adding a plain text version of your HTML email is important because some email clients and user settings cannot (or choose not to) load HTML.
If so, the client will look for another plain text version of your HTML email to load for the user. Otherwise, it can signal to the recipient’s email server that your message is spam or potentially harmful.
Most email tools will automatically provide a plain text version of what is displayed if the recipient’s email server requests it, but if you’re coding an HTML email from scratch, you’ll need to create something called a multipart MIME message.
A MIME multipart message is an email that contains a plain text version and an HTML version of the same email. If the recipient’s email client or security system does not allow HTML email, a plain text version will be displayed. This is a process that requires advanced coding knowledge, so we recommend working closely with the developer.
- Make sure your email still makes sense if the image doesn’t load.
Some users disable auto-loading images, which means they’ll see your email without the image when they open it.
For this reason, don’t rely entirely on images to convey the meaning of your message, and always add alternative text to the images you include. Alternate text loads even without an image, so your customers can see what’s in the image.
5. Perform extensive testing.
Finally, you should test your HTML email at every stage of development to make sure it works across different email clients, operating systems, and device types.
Don’t wait until the end of your email check – checking as you work is a great way to spot inconsistencies between different email clients and ensure that you’re creating the most consistent experience for your recipients.
If you’re working from scratch, you can use tools like HTML Email Check or to gain insight into how your email looks on different devices and email clients.